World of Chances
by PhoenixRoseQueenToo
Summary: I've got a world of chances for you, chances that you're burning through...
1. Burning

**Author's Note:** This is a totally different story from Behind the Veil again, Pansy-centric, but not necessarily Pansy/Harry, if at all. I haven't decided yet. This story is completed, but I am considering a sequel for this one as well. I'll be finished posting by the the start of next week, probably.

* * *

I gasped, walking in though the front door of our house. You're on the couch, on top of Astoria Greengrass, snogging to the point of nudity. I see your shirt thrown over the back of the couch, her shoes kicked beside the hallway, one pointy stiletto sticking up from under her cardigan. Your hand is up her skirt, and she's reaching for your belt buckle. Neither of you notice as I quietly click the door shut and toe back down the path, as if I am the one in the wrong. I don't know. Maybe I am. Maybe I should have called to let you know taht I was coming home early? Maybe then I could have spared myself that scene, could have avoided this heavy, painful, jagged thudding in my chest. Avoided the warm and cold tears running their own abstract paths down my face.

Maybe.

But maybe you should have taken my trust seriously. Maybe you should have went over to her house. Maybe you shouldn't have done it at all. Maybe you should have taken my love seriously. Taken _me_seriously.

Maybe.

I notice that there are too many possibilities in this equation. Then I think maybe you're sneaking around because you take my love seriously, because you don't want to hurtme. You just made a mistake. You didn't expect me to be back so soon. I was supposed to be gone another ninety minutes. Maybe, just maybe, you do love me.

Gods, I sound so _stupid!_

I need to face it. I never had your heart. I knew that. You know that I knew, but you also know that I was desperately in love with you. and you took advantage of that. Someone who would easily be on your side, easily dependable, easily convienient for a quick shag, if need be.

Of course.

And I took it.

The more that I look at things, I feel as if I am to blame for all of it. I mean, really. What girl would be dumb enough, desperate enough, to jump at the chance to be with any guy, not just you? Even if they are in "love." Given the circumstances, given his history, who? I was there through it all, from the girl in fourth year you lead off into a vacant classroom at the Yule Ball when your date was busy searching for your in the maze that was the gardens; the seventh-year twins you pulled when we were fifteen. You acted as if you really thought they were the same person and a got away with it too; sixth-year you had a girl in each of the Hogwarts Houses, dated and snogged- possibly more- each of them for three months. You might have made it full-term, but Zabini ruined if for you. By seventh year, I quit counting after you broke up and got with the seventh girl in six weeks. The speed datinggame between you and Millicent Bullstrode sickened me. Yet I stayed fixated on you. Even now, four years after graduation, two years after we became "official," I still am. And I don't know why.

Somehow, I end up at Theo Nott's house, about three miles from ours. I don't knock, just walk in. He's not in sight, but I make myself comfortable in one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter separating the kitchen from the living room. The tears still fall, but they're slower now. The ache in the back of my head is dull, yet it somehow pounds at my temples harder than a hammer. Even through it, I manage to find a pen and a notepad laying above the sink. My plan had been predetermined, even if I didn't know it. I'll get some of my things when you go to work tomorrow- if you really work that is, you never pay for anything- and bring them here. Theo shouldn't care, not too much. You should know that I won't be back. You won't have to sneak around with Astoria any longer. I vaguely wonder if _she_knows that yo're sneaking around, or simply doesn't care.

The words come out slow and large as I write them out. I feel something in my chest lift, yet at the same time, my guy clenches tight. It's a battle, one half of my heart verses the other. I've gone through this too many times for too long. You don't love me. Never did, never will.

A tight ball of paper falls to the ground.

I can't do it.

Even if it's shrinking, I've a world of chances for you. I just can't bare to let go.


	2. Second

I'd been up too late last night playing the muggle's game Nintendo Wii. It's just too dang on addictive. Caroline is too good of a player. We were palyihng tennis until nearly six-thirty in the morning. So I could'nt go home. Well, I could have, but since I lived a couple of miles off and could barely stand, let alone walk, that would have meant me going through the whole I'm-a-wizard thing and I wasn't entirely certain that I wanted to go through that story yet. Instead I crashed on the couch while she rushed off to her early-morning class at university. I will never know how she manages that every other weekend without one potion or another. All Caroline ever needs is a cup of coffee and -_bam!-_ insta-wake.

I don't wake until about three o'clock. I know Lina would be back from class and in bed until she has to leave for her four-thirty class, so I scrawl a note for her on the refridgerator and Disapparate. I arrive home one severe stomach drop and a split-second later. Walking in the door I see a mess of paper on my counter spilling onto the floor, either balled, shredded, or wrinkeled as if balled then flattened back out. I didn't have to look to know that you would be on the couch either asleep or crying. A look at your face tells me that you did indeed cry yourself to sleep and I didn't have to look at the papers to know that something happened with Draco.

Of course.

I told you all through Hogwarts to keep your mind off of him, to put Draco Malfoy behind you. I _still _tell you that. You can do so much better than him but you steadily pretend that he's the only one, _the best one_ for you. But I have to disagree. Anyone you chose woyld be better than Draco Malfoy. Even a bum off the streets. He would he faithful, he would appreciate you. He would care for you. Malfoy doesn't. Draco Mayfoy only cares about himself. Period. Yet you refuse to see it. Or rather, you see it, you just pretend not to care. And when something happens, you end up here, with me who you call your best friend, your caretaker, your knight.

You have no idea how true I wish that was.

And I hate it. I hate when you call me your knight in shining armor in that joking manner and return to his arms. I hate when you cry into my t-shirt, yet pretend not to care when Malfoy's around. I hate that you ask me to keep you company when he's gone, yet you call him a million times until he returns. I hate that you _need_ me, but _want_ him.

Sometimes I hate _you_. But those moments are so fleeting, and I feel so ashamed afterwards that I can't even think of you without attacking myself like a house-elf. You make me so erratic sometimes, and I can't tell if I like it or not.

I love you, alright? I love you but I rather not face it because if I do, I'll want to rip that so-called boyfriend of yours to a million pieces, want to destory every cell and atom of his being for every tear that you shed over him, every tiny, insignificant hurt that he caused you. If I face it, I'll want to kidnap you and take you somewhere far a way until you realize that you do too, that you will too, if you only took the time to pay attention.

I love you. And I will give you a world of chances to prove it. But I'll only be here for so long. Because being second place is the worse in the world. I'm so close, yet I can't move past the one in first. I can't go foreward. And being in second place in a no-contest race...

I grab the blanket I keep in the coat closet specially for this occasion. It's your favorite. I remember you said that when we went shopping to furnish my place. It's black and spotted with stars, the five-pointed ones we draw and the ones in the sky that look as if someone got tired of actually trying and just splattered paint evey where. It feels itchy to my skin, but you curl up under it all cozy-like that I wonder why it doesn't feel as soft as sikl. And as I lay the blanket over your dejected pose, you somehow sense me and grab the hem of my shirt.

"Astoria," tumbles from your lips, a whisper and barely audible. "He... couch...Asori... ah..."

So that was his target this time. Two months ago it was Hannah Abott and you were in my yard blasing holes in the ground. I now have three shallow ponds from that bout. Eight months ago it was Millicent Bullstrode. You spent the weekend with me in London and broke out in tears whenever you heard "cent," or any form of the word, "walk." I still suspect that you were the reason she fell down that flight of stairs when we saw her at the library. I pat the back of your hand then smooth away your hair before taking up my usual spot on the floor right beside you.

Yeah, a world of chances.


	3. Afraid

I don't deserve a friend like Theo, really I don't. Sometimes I wonder if he doesn't have a girlfriend or someone he should be dedicating his time to, then realize that I don't _want _him to. I couldn't function without him, not truly. I'd be crushed by the weight of this situation with you. Bastard.

But I can't let go.

Maybe i'm just too selfish. I've the love of my life and my best friend. Gods. What am I doing? I don't even know. I feel so stupid sometimes, so lonely others. But I don't know what I should do, _how _I should do it. Sometimes I really think that I would do better to get over you. Others, I find, I don't want to. Am I really that pathetic?

I wake up hours later, on Theo's couch. Of course. It's what happens everytime you do this to me. But do I stop? No. I used to hate dumb girls. Now I am one.

Theo's head lays on the arm of the couch, he's laying beside me. I don't have to open my eyes to know that he's tossed my favorite blanket across my body. I sit up and look back over at the counter and my now-vacated chair. Theo hasn't touched the scraps of notes I've shrewn about. I don't know what I'm going to do. I count the balls and torn piles. Thirty-two. That's seven more than last time, two more than the time before that. Before then, I didn't even make it to that stage.

Am I that desperate, that I'll keep huring myself over and over? Really? I never thought so but now...

I throw the blanket off of myself and stand. I don't bother to wake Theo because I know he'll be up in a matter of minutes. It's how it always happens. I feel like I wake him up sometimes, but Theo refuses to sleep in his own bed. Instead he offers me the bed. It feels too intimate though, almost wrong, sleeping in his room. I can't very well do it. So we both sleep in the living room, me on the couch, he on the floor next to me.

I clean my mess before noticing how the light slants into the room. It's around five o'clock, I figure. So I slept most of the day. I wonder how long Theo was asleep on the floor and tell myself to ask when he joins me in the kitchen. I busy myself cooking a lame dinner of stuffed cheeseburgers and fries. I consider attempting a chocolate milkshake but somehow doubt Theo would have the means. He didn't last time and I doubt he would now.

"What are we eating tonight?" Theo's sleepy voice doesn't surprise me. Instead it's comforting and I feel better almost instantly, tons better than I have all day. I open the oven to show him the grayish slabs of beef cooking in the glass pan.

"Mozzarella or pepper jack?"

"Ew, mozzarella. Besides, you don't have pepper jack, Thee."

"Huh. Well, you're the only one who goes in there anyway. I just buy what you tell me to."

"So when I'm not here to cook for you, you what, eat out? At Caroline's?" Theo looks thoughtful for a moment, but I know he's faking it.

"Yep." This is our relationship. I take care of him, he teases me. If I'm having issues with you, you damn bastard, Theo takes care of me instead. I still haven't figured out if Theo does this because he feels obliged to , or if he truly does care. Either way, I really appreciate it.

Theo sits at the counter, opposite me washing dishes in the sink. "So, Astoria Greengrass, huh? Wasn't she a year behind us or something?" I glare up at him. Do I really want to talk about this now? Do I want to think about this now? I'll have to sometime...

"I don't know. Never thought about her. Still don't. How do you know anyway?"

"I thought you don't think about her?"

"Theodore."

"Geez, sorry. You mumbled something while you were asleep. You grabbed me again." Right. That's been happening a lot lately, everytime I fall asleep with Theo. Even when I'm not having issues with you, I end up spending nights with my best friend- in many ways, my only friend.

"I say anything else?"

"You said you loved me,"

"I guess I also said you have a big head," Theo grinned at me.

"Are you leaving me after dinner?"

I shrug.

"Are you going to talk to me?"

I shake my head.

"Are you leaving him?"

Again I shrug. I feel like a six-year-old, not giving direct answers. As usual, Theo speaks my thoughts.

"You're acting like a child."

"So," very dignified. Theo laughs. "What should I do?Really? It's like... I'm tired of this, I really am, Theo, but I can't stand the thought of not being with him. I've wanted it for too long."

"Is it possible that what you want has changed? I mean, that you're only still with him because you've wanted him for so long and are scared of not wanting him?"

"What?" Theo explains that I may only want to stay with and love you because I'm afraid of not loving you. I'll have to admit that it would make sense... if it weren't such a cracknob excuse.

"Right, so I spend eight years likeing- loving- the same guy just to realize, while I'm with him, that I don't?"

"It's palpable." Theo nods. "Stranger things have happened. But I didn't say that. I said that you're scared not to want him. That you don't want to realize that you don't care about Draco Malfoy like you used to. You just did it because you thought you were supposed to."

I roll my eyes at him. I don't want to listen to Theo's theories about me and you, and especially my feelings regarding you. But I can't deny that he may be on to something. Do I want you? I won't deny that I love you. But why did I start? I know I waited for you to notice me at Hogwarts, but what about now, as adults? My heart no longer thuds heavily when I see you, nor does my face and chest get all warm when you speak or look at me. I don' t hang on to you every word like I used to, or try to find ways that I can just be with you. If anything, I think I've started avoiding you. But does that constitiute to me not wanting to be with you anymore?

Sometimes I hate my best friend.


	4. Best Friend

Sometimes I hate my best friend. You sit there talking about and fretting over a boy who doesn't even love you, meanwhile, you take my existence for granted. Do you even notice the way I look at you? How I avoid looking directly at you sometimes because I'm too embarrassed? That I act like a little child around you because you bring out that side of me? That every thing I say is directed towards making you smile or laugh, at least once? Do you realize how much you FRUSTRATE me?

I guess I have myself to blame. I mean, you only see me as a friend, right? Nothing more, nothing less. That's fine... sometimes. And I wouldn't have a problem with it if I didn't have a fighting chance against Draco Malfoy. But _you don't love him_! And you KNOW he doesn't love you. This is what, the sixth girl? Seventh? In two years? He is not going to change!

But I can't tell you any of that. You'll only get mad and growl at me and bark all of the "Many Reasons Why" you two belong together and how he will one day miraculously realize that yes, you _are_ the one he's been looking for! That he will rush to my place after one of your fights and he will scoop you up in his arms and carry you home and you'll blush because you'll be thinking indecent thoughts and I'll roll my eyes all the while thinking, _wake up Pansy!_ Yet I want all of that for you because you're worth it and I hate seeing you cry over him every other week.

Does he even know you're here half the time?

"So are we just going to hang here tonight, listen to the radio or...?" You nod and your short hair flies into your face. I stare at the bit that curls into your eye wanting to brush it away with my fingertips, but you push it away before I have the chance to humiliate myself.

"That sounds fine."

I grab the cards.

Tunk. Rummy. Twenty-one. Bull. Tens. Hours pass before you say anything other than a light word or joke.

"They were on the couch. A full minute from sex. Right _there,_ Thee. Barely past noon. I don't even think he noticed that I was even there." I don't say a word. I know the drill by now. Anything I say will likely close you off or send you into a rant. Besides. You need this.

"I don't... I'm not sure if what you said is entirely a load of dung. I'm not sure I really understand what you said, actually. But... eight years is enough. I should be done with this by now. I think I'm over him- or the idea of him." I nod. "You still have an extra room, right? I was hoping I could stay with you until I found my own place. I won't be intruding or anything, right?"

"More than you already are?" I scoff. "You're here every other day. All you _need_ is a room and to pay half of the bills." You smile. Probably the second one of the night. But I wonder how long this revelation will last, and how much you'll be hurt next time.


	5. Tired

I take a breath as I turn the knob. The living room is empty, and the smell I'm sure would have followed your actions last night. I exhale, relieved. I'm certain that I couldn't have you right now. And if I did... I couldn't take it. My resolve would fail. Either that, or I'd try to beat you to raw and bloody with my bare hands. If only I had befriended Hermione Granger instead of bullied her (funny joke). But still. Maybe I would have gained some valuable spell knowledge. (Like how to shrivel your-)

For whatever reason, I tiptoe up the stairs to our bedroom. All I need is my old school trunk and I will be set. Everything can fit in there, I'm sure. And then I can Floo everything to Theo's. Once again I inhale deeply, before turning the knob. I don't know what I expected. Maybe for you to be naked in the _bed_ with Astoria Greengrass. Maybe for there to be Daphne in the bed with the both of you. Or maybe I was expecting you to be miserable, wondering where I was and how you could be so stupid as to cheat on me- _yet again-_ with Astoria Greengrass.

Maybe I expected nothing.

What I didn't expect was for you to be closing my trunk with a definite _thud._ I stop in the doorway. My stuff... is... gone. The closet half-empty. The dresser clear of all objects. Everything... You look up at tiny gasp of surprise. I don't look at you, don't want to look at you, only know your movements from the corner of my eye, or from what I hear. I'm still staring at my trunk, the faded gold script across the top declaring _Pansy Parkinson _ in the top left-hand corner.

"Pansy. I wasn't sure... I packed your things for you."

"Wh... why?"

"I didn't tell you the other night?"

"Where you even home 'the other night?'"

"...Oh. Well yeah, in any case, Astoria- she's moving in."

"Into the guest room?" We don't have a guest room.

"No, in here. That's why your stuff is packed. I'm kicking you out."

"Of what might as well be my house? You are kicking me out of the house I have paid rent and utilities on for the last three years?"

"Pansy..."

"Draco what? You know? I'm not so sure because you sure as hell don't act like it. You're sorry? That's _hilarious._ We've been this before? Yeah. I know. We've gone through _all_ of this before." I stand and face you with determination. I don't know why it's taken me this long to see that Theo's been right all this time. You don't love me. I don't even think you've ever been remotely interested in me, only in using me. It's funny actually, when I think about it. That I've been struggling to hold on to you when I never had you in the first place. Realizing all of that, I know that my next words are true: "But you know what? I don't care this time. Not anymore." I pull my wand from my purse, non-verbally levitate my trunk. "I came here to pack my stuff anyway. I saw you two yesterday and decided that I hope you and Astoria and whoever the hell else have a nice life." I begin back up the hall through the kitchen and into the living room.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" _As if you really care,_ is what I want to shout at you. After all, I can feel my eyes burn and prickle with the tears I'm holding back. Why the hell I'm crying is not apparent to me.

"Theo's. Like always. But I doubt you knew that."

"I know you can't keep using him. Eventually he'll tire of you Pansy. Just like I have."

"I'm not using him, he's my friend, Draco."

"Just believe that. Nobody does anything unless there's something in it for themselves. Nott probably thinks that you're gonna give him some." It takes all of my strength not to turn around and slap you right then. I force myself to laugh drily.

"I'm sure you believe that too. But I'd rather take my chances." By this point I've seized a handful of Floo Power from the clear glass bowl on the coffee table and have thrown it into the fireplace. Beautiful green flames roar and you try to stop me once again, try to tear me down once more before I go. I cut you off by shouting Nott's address.

_He'll tire of you, Pansy._

Right. I'll deal with that when I get there.


End file.
